Halo Top created a groundbreaking category in ice cream—delicious ice cream that’s only 280-360 calories and 20 grams of protein per pint. In 2017, Halo Top was America’s #1 best-selling pint. Subsequently a lot more copy cats were starting to saturate the market trying to steal Halo Top’s market share with similar product benefits. We needed to stand out even further from the competition. To generate buzz and raise awareness among Halo Top’s most desired potential customers, we launched their first national broadcast campaign by hijacking a cultural moment near and dear to our consumers hearts: The Bachelor.

Most ice cream brands focus on showing happy and stylized food porn of swirling flavors. We decided to focus on the emotional truth that leads grown adults to eat an entire pint of ice cream.

Adulthood sucks and that's why adults NEED a lot of ice cream. With only 300 calories per pint, adults can eat as much as they want. To launch Ice Cream for Adults, our debut spot featured Nick Viall, who starred as the Bachelor after finishing second in two consecutive seasons of The Bachelorette. Nick embodied the truth of our campaign because when you get dumped, especially on national TV, you’re going to need a lot of ice cream.

We know that ABC’s The Bachelor garners a captive and passionate audience of adults who enjoy watching other adults get broken up with. To raise awareness among new consumers, garner engagement with Halo Top and stand out from the growing competitive space, we integrated The Bachelor’s central theme of love lost into one of the most buzzworthy episodes of the season. Because when you get dumped on national TV, you’re going to need a lot of ice cream.

Working with the creators of the show, we identified Nicole: this season’s most emotional loser. On the penultimate Women Tell All episode, as she relived the trauma, our Halo Top man appeared with ice cream. Then, on the next commercial break, we debuted our campaign with this bespoke spot featuring three-time Bachelor and loser at love, Nick Viall.

We launched our first two spots of the campaign during the Women Tell All Episode of the Bachelor. We also utilized an integration during the broadcast of the episode to make Halo Top the center of conversation throughout the episode. We supplemented these media placements by using our partnership with former Bachelor contestant Nick Viall to generate conversations and engagement with “Bachelor nation” on Twitter and Instagram. The total initial media flight lasted less than two weeks across broadcast but by utilizing contextually relevant media placements and tapping into a rabid fanbase, we were able to put our product on display to a massive audience.

During the integration, Halo Top conversation reached a first quarter peak of 1.5K+ mentions, 8x higher than the daily average during January and February. Throughout the rest of March, the integration caused a ‘halo’ effect on conversation volume: over 400 daily mentions, 120% higher than the average two months prior to the airing of the “Women Tell All” episode. The traffic on the Halotop.com website increased by almost 200% and online sales per day also saw a 140% increase.

Between March 3-5th, Halo Top garnered 3.3MM+ impressions on Twitter, 3MM impressions on ABC Digital with a 98% completion rate on videos and 7.9MM impressions between Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.

You’re probably tired of reading this case study, we understand. Doing things you don’t want to do is part of being an adult. At least now you can eat an entire pint of Halo Top ice cream.